My question involves collection proceedings in the State of: california & federal
Hi all,
Ok so background, I worked in the USA on a visa for many years and was in the green card process. I had a great salary and built my credit rating to 750 within 3 years of being there. I had a card which I paid off then took another. Then things with my employer went sour. We parted on mutual terms and i found out that I lost the green card as my employment had ended before the process was completed. As I was on a L1 not a H1 I could not be employed elsewhere so had to return to my home country. I paid off as much debt as I could, took a road trip across the USA (as i had always dreamed of doing in the previous 5 years of working there, but never had the time) and returned home. I had the intention of paying everything off over time from the country i was now back in.
Stupidly, as I was going through louisiana I walked into a jewelers with the idea of buying my girlfriend a necklace. I had some severance cash so thought it was a good idea. I dont know why (likely that charming sales lady) but I ended up taking a $1500 ring, $1300 of which was credit which I intended to pay back from my wages back home.
I left my car in florida, boarded a plane and flew home. I called back to the finance company and told them where the car was and what the circumstances were. They understood, told me it would be collected and I would hear from them. I never did. A family member who lives in florida confirmed they came and got the car.
Well back home, I found a crashed job market. a year after then I still had no luck, so it goes without saying I have not paid anything off the ring. I also left maybe $2k with citibank credit card, another $2k with chase and about $1.5k shared over other cards - as I said I paid most of it off with my severance. I think the car company could have sold the car for (very conservative est) $22k and I owed $27k.
I still have aUS checking account, and the credit balance in there has never been touched.
Now I have a job again and im in a position to try to start cleaning up the mess, but my new employers want me to fly out to chicago later this month and im very concerned that there could be problems with me entering the US because of the money issues I left behind. Problem is, i cant do my job without going. If i dont have this job then I cant pay any of it back.
So id like to ask what your thought and advice is on my scenario? Ive ben thinking of getting a lawyer to check if i have any warrants or anything because of what happened but im just utterly confused and frankly scared as I have to come back and circumstances put me in this position. I need this job to pay back what i owe, but if i come to the USA and get arrested then i lose the job and am broke. What do i do?

